Get Data

The Get Data plugin allows OL Connect Send users (admins, accounting personnel, print masters ...) to get information about all jobs received with OL Connect Send on a dedicated machine. It allows queries of the OL Connect Send Database to be made for the production of reports.

All job info that could be retrieved will be written to a temporary results file that is then passed on as the new Workflow job file. It can be used right after the Get Job data plugin in the same Workflow configuration. It could for example be saved using a Send to Folder plugin.

Note: The Get Data plugin gets data from the OL Connect Send database which means it only works when Connect is in LICENSED mode.

Properties

General Tab

Filter options

Filters are required for:

  • Start and end date (down to minutes)
  • Domain(s)
  • User(s)
  • Machine name(s)

Except for start and end dates, it is possible to pass a list of multiple search criteria, separated with semicolons, containing:

  • Workflow variables
  • Job variables
  • Names.

Tip: No spaces are allowed around the listed names, respectively before or after a semicolon.

Operators

  • Searches are case-insensitive.
  • Multiple entries in one filter field are combined with: OR.
  • Entries in different filter fields are combined with: AND.
Example 1

A valid user name search string, entered in the Filter Users field, would be:

%\{global.User};helen;%1;george napier

This would look for all entries, where the user name is either:

  • as currently stored in the global Workflow variable User

  • "helen"

  • as stored in the job variable number 1

  • equals "george napier" (case insensitive).

These search criteria are combined with OR.

Example 2

The domain name entered in the Filter Domains field is objmtl.objectiflune.com and the user name entered in the Filter Users field is rentel.
If search criteria are entered in multiple input fields, all of them are combined with AND.
Therefore the result will only contain all the print job information for objmtl.objectiflune.com where the user name is rentel.

Date and Time Definitions

Both date and time entries must be notated in UTC format. During runtime the dates are checked and if any other date/time notation is used, a Workflow error log entry is created.

UTC notation is described here: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html.

Valid date/time entries:

2016-07-12 It is possible to only define a date without a time.
2016-%m-%d Standard Workflow variables for year, month and day are allowed.
2016-07-12 11:00 From and To dates may also have a time indicator (24 hour notation, separator from the date is a space character, separator between hour and minute is a colon)

It is possible to define the same date for From Date/Time as for To Date/Time. However, entering the same info (without time information) would lead to getting no entries.

Results

For each job that matches the search criteria, the following information will be put into the resulting data file:

  • Job UID
  • Date/Time stamp
  • Number of Copies
  • Number of pages
  • User name
  • Original file name
  • Original file size
  • Domain (workgroup) name
  • Domain / Workgroup Indicator
  • Machine name
  • Machine GUID.

Results File Format

The following result file formats are selectable:

  • XML
  • JSON
  • CSV (Separator = semicolon (0x3B), string indicator = quote (0x22)).

Note: This file is not automatically saved to disk. The retrieved job info is written to a temporary results file that will be passed on as the new Workflow job file. To save the results file, use a Send to Folder plugin and configure that appropriately.

Returned information

For each job received by the OL Connect Send Job Processor plugin the following values will be available.

  • Job UID: This is the 10 (ten) character long Unique Job Identifier string.
  • Status ID: The status ID shows in which stage the job currently is:
    0 = undefined; 1 = idle; 2 = transfer; 3 = chunk; 4 = concatenate; 5 = unzip; 6 = done.
    A value of 6 indicates a fully processed job. Any value between 2 and 5 (inclusive) means that the job is still in progress. For a small job, some statuses may be skipped.
  • Date/Time stamp: This is the time when the matching job was initially created in the database. It is stored in the database in UTC format with a time zone indicator. It will differ from the time stamp logged by the OL Connect Send Printer Driver as well as by the OL Connect Send Job Processor.

    Note: The Printer Driver machine time stamp in the Printer Driver log may significantly differ from this value.

  • Number of Copies: This is the value set by the OL Connect Send Printer Driver for the number of copies (intended number of copies required for the print job). Some applications do not use the general print job information to define the number of copies. In such (rare) cases, the Number of Copies sent in the job can differ from what the user entered in the print dialog. For example: "IrfanView" does not use the regular Copies indicator, but instead sends the same job as many times as indicated by Copies in its print dialog.
  • Number of pages: This is the number of pages for one copy of the print job. This value is calculated by the Windows spooler, when processing the printing order. Please be aware that some applications do an implicit reformatting of jobs if the intended paper size does not match the paper size as selected in the print dialog. This may lead to the fact that the number of pages, as calculated by the spooler and reported by OL Connect Send, can differ from that value as shown to the user in the application itself.
  • User name: This is the Windows user name of the user who started the application to produce the print job. It is not - in all cases - the user name of the user who is currently logged into the system.
  • Original file name: This is the "file name" as sent from the application to the Windows spooling system. It is taken from the name as it arrives in the spooler. Some applications add info to the name (like Notepad++) while others don’t (like Adobe Reader). OL Connect Send can only use what it gets from the spooler. It does not interact with the applications itself.
  • Original file size: The size of the print job - NOT the size of the document file.
  • Domain (workgroup) name: The name of the domain or workgroup the printing user belongs to. This is not necessarily the name of the domain the machine itself belongs to. For explanations about domains, domain names, users, user names, user domains, logged on users vs. application running users, machine names etc. please refer to the respective Windows help pages or ask your system administrator.
  • Domain / Workgroup Indicator: Indicates whether the field "Domain (workgroup) name" is a domain name or a workgroup name. The possible values are 0 (false) for a workgroup, or 1 (true) for a domain.
  • Machine name: The name of the machine the OL Connect Send Printer Driver is running on as retrieved by the respective Windows API.
  • Machine GUID: The unique machine ID of the machine on which the job was produced. It can be used as an additional identification mark to validate the origin of the job.

On Error Tab

For a description of the options on the On Error tab see Using the On Error tab.

Miscellaneous Tab

The Miscellaneous tab is common to all tasks.

It contains a text area (Task comments) that lets you write comments about the task. These comments are saved when the dialog is closed with the OK button and are displayed in The Task Comments Pane.

Check the option Use as step description to display the text next to the icon of the plugin in the Process area.

The tab also provides an option to highlight the task in The Process area with the default color, set in the Preferences (see Colors), or the color selected or defined under Highlight color on this tab.
To revert the selected highlight color to the default color, open this tab, turn the Highlight option off and close the dialog with the OK button; then turn highlighting back on.
Highlighting can also be turned on and off via the task's contextual menu and with the Highlight button on the View ribbon.